Veteran news-commandos over at Eurogamer have spotted a tweet by John Carmack saying that id will be announcing a new game at QuakeCon tonight. In all likelihood this’ll happen during his keynote speech, which starts at 8:30pm UK time or 2:30pm Dallas / CDT time.

What could it be! Well, we kind of know what it’ll be. It’ll be Doom 4. We know id started work on Doom 4 back in 2008, and in 2009 they said that they’d be talking about it at QuakeCon 2010. Still, exciting! We only have some 10 hours of precious ignorance left! Let’s make some wild assumptions. I think Doom 4 will be a shooter, featuring some kind of gun, with emergent weaponry based on repurposing the body parts of various demons. Like, dual-wielded kidneys, or perhaps a whip made of intestines. What do you think, readers?

Oooh! I hope you can sling explosive/metal bits in the general direction of angry-looking-but-never-talked-to creatures that may or may not have had the intention of harming me before they were hit by previously described bit!

“Lest hardcore gamers fear Carmack is going soft, he notes his fights to simplify “Doom 3″ haven’t always been successful. He admits the id Software developers got into bitter arguments about whether to include “crouch” and “use” keys in the upcoming game. (He lost the debate over “crouch” – which now appears – but convinced the team there was no need for a “use” key.) “

The only thing I can say for certain, is that it will be pretty much like the other Dooms.

I am sure I heard something about how John Carmack was arguing about having a “use” button in their games, for fear of it taking away from the “pure” shooter experience. Or was that just the Quake series?

“Lest hardcore gamers fear Carmack is going soft, he notes his fights to simplify “Doom 3″ haven’t always been successful. He admits the id Software developers got into bitter arguments about whether to include “crouch” and “use” keys in the upcoming game. (He lost the debate over “crouch” – which now appears – but convinced the team there was no need for a “use” key.) “

Inspired by the Interactive Fiction field and that bit at the end of ME1 where you talk Saren into doing the job himself, Doom 4 will be a psychotherapy-‘em-up where you trade chainsaws for couches and talk to the demons about where this deep-seated need for destruction comes from and does it still hurt that their Daddy ran out on them when they were only 4 eons old?

Also, Quinns, seeing as you now post as much as the rest of the Hivemind combined, when are you actually getting your credit at the bottom of the site? I bet you’re a better healer than John as well.

What’s that? You’re rough-cutting a freshly boiled egg? Mixing it with egg yolk and olive oil? A touch of mustard? Paprika too? All between two thick slices of wholemeal bread still warm from the oven! Goddamn am I excited! And I’m getting a blow job while i’m eating it too! WIN!

(The ingredients represent, like graphics and and light RPG systems and stuff. The blow job represents talking with the monsters, mostly in the sense of it not going to happen).

Any idea if there’s going to be an Internet stream of the keynote or the various panels during the event? There’s Quake Live TV but as far as I could figure it out, they only show the competitive gaming matches. Or am I wrong?

Left 4 Doom? You and three other gritty space marines of various backgrounds fight your way through demon Hordes, controlled by the all powerful Producer. From time to time you encounter “Super-Demons” which challenge you to a specific type of team-play. There’s a horrible monster known as the Warlock, which sits in a corner, silently chuckling to itself until you point your flashlight at it.
You and the other Space Marines quip about the situation and how such an unlikely quartet ended up together in this Demon Apocalypse.

@Jac
I totally forgot about that. But “use inventory item” isn’t what most people mean by “use key” :)
@Malibu Stacy
Not, quite. Quake 3 had a (very limited) inventory system. You could only carry one item at a time, and there were, I think, only ever two inventory items in the whole game. One was a teleport that dropped you someplace random, the other was a med-kit / syringe thing that healed you.

A reimagination of the Quake franchise, as a Lovercraftian horror game, in a sub, in the artic, with a fresh inventity system to create your own properties. Somewhat like John Carmack’s Bioshock….. QuakeShock?

all i know about doom4 is that it will have a 30fps limit. and i think i remember something about more open spaces, but not sure… anyways. there will be something interesting for me to read tomorrow morning.

I think Carmack is going a bit senile in his old age. He has made some truly baffling decisions lately.

Doom 4: Capped at 30fps, because even if your PC is capable of more, it’s VERY TECHNICAL AND WE CAN’T EXPLAIN IT.

Rage: Matchmaking-based multiplayer without servers, because that’s the way forward and not at all how you get laggy games hosted by one guy with a ridiculous ping advantage.

Doom iPhone: We removed the one halfway-decent control system from the options menu, because nobody mentioned they could use it. You can reenable it via a hidden console command, but it’s not documented at all.

Carmack has said in an interview that it’ll be at least a decade before they produce another new IP so that they can support the ones they already have.
So even if we can’t be totally certain (just mostly certain) that this announcement will be Doom 4 we can say for sure it’s not something brand new.

i just cant get excited about this after Doom3, i want explanations about the duct tape thing, i just cant believe the thought that “not being able to use the light and a weapon at the same time” was completely retarded just happened to slip everyone at the dev team, testers and previewer’s minds, that freaking crap was an outright specific design decision, i want answers

or to tie things, or using duct tape or holding both weapon and flashlight at the same time, or mounting highlights on heavy space armor that limits mobility and visibility (like the one you wear), or having head mounted light helmets on dark places, or putting emergency lights in starships/spacestation and i could keep going, jeez i have a led flashlight that illuminate better than doom3’s brick, has 1/5 the size, already comes with a sticker like thing behind to paste it on the wall and lasts more than the duration of the game with just one set of batteries

and btw, have you played any Silent Hill ? you have lights on all the ones i played and they are a lot more scary and doom3 and its “always spawn behind you after the sound cue” enemies

It’s a tricky one, this. I don’t really believe he will announce Doom 4, but if he does, then it will have to walk carefully between new ideas and old ones. I’ve played Doom back and forth, sideways, upwards, in and out, and I’m done. If D4 is nothing more than a cosmetic update, then I couldn’t care less about it. If it has loads of new ideas, then the traditonalists will hate it.

If nothing else it’s encouraging that the fellows are expending lots of energy arguing about groundbreaking innovations like “use” keys. I can only imagine what revolutionary new ideas they’re cooking up for us.

Please be good!
1) Do something with the corridor if you must have one.
2) No identical monsters right next to each other.
3) I NEVER WANT TO BACK PEDDLE IN A SHOOTER.
Firing at an on rushing monster whilst blindly walking backwards is rubbish. Either I stand my ground or I strafe to the side…you know like I did in DOOM.
4) Please be good.

After thinking about it, I would like to see some actual AI, beyond the “see player = shoot player” kind. I do want to see monsters getting pissed at each other and start fighting. I always liked that about Doom and it’s so very rare in games.

I think I can condense this down to “fun, no bullshit, and colors other than brown”. Yeah, that’s what I want.

*looks in the dictionary*
DOOM… hmm… DOOM… aah, here we have it:
“look under YADSWNIAA”
Allright then… YADSWNIAA does mean…:
“Yet Another Default Shooter With No Innovation At ALL”
Great! I’m back to bed! ID is dead.